


it's all about the team

by clairelutra (exosolarmoon), sharpshooting



Series: I want the K (the shance edition) [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (...sort of), Awkwardness, Fake Marriage, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Pining, Rescue Missions, but mostly independent, kissing as misdirection, slight season 5 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 19:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharpshooting/pseuds/sharpshooting
Summary: Lance, Shiro, and an escape from formal execution. All in the day of the universe's legendary defenders, right?It was only halfway there that he realized that he didn't have a clue how tohandShiro the key when the key was most definitelynot in his handand he had no way of discreetly getting it there. He couldn't exactly hand Shiro the key with hismouth.Lance wasn't very good at forethought today, was he.He kept paddling even as his extremities went numb at the realization, his mind silently, helplessly reeling as Shiro approached like oncoming doom.Wait,he thought when he was a mere five feet away from Shiro.Mouth.Lance had a mouth. Shiro also had a mouth.There actuallywasa way he could hand Shiro the key, it just didn't involve hands....This was going to be awkward asfuck.





	it's all about the team

**Author's Note:**

> HAHAHAUHUEHEUFDHGF 
> 
> s5 resurrected my shance ass, i'm js
> 
> (title is from "Austin Mahone ft. Pitbull - Mmm Yeah", according to this youtube vid i have playing.)

18: Underwater Kiss

The warmed metal of the key dug into the underside of Lance’s tongue as he floated outside the underwater prison. It wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, but tracing the grooves as he tread water was easier than thinking about the fact that Shiro was about to walk to his execution.

The fact that this was Shiro’s fifth time getting sentenced to death on an alien planet made it was less disturbing than it might have been, but still. Lance was riding the high of royal espionage (it had been one _hell_ of an adventure getting their hands on the key) and his already-jumpy thoughts were starting to torment him with scenarios of what would happen if their rescue failed—and their rescue, as Slav had told them, had a ten-percent chance of working.

Which Lance thought was kind of unfair. He thought they'd done pretty good for only having three hours to work with.

Shiro was on the wrong side of the rift between their parties, limp in the hands of the armed guards, staring sightlessly at the unnervingly blank sea floor, and Lance's heart gave a sharp twist at the furrow between his brows, his stomach churning as they all listened to Allura give one last shot at getting the regent to release their teammate.

"Then you will not listen to _reason_ ," she spat, disgusted enough to get Lance to start paying attention to his surroundings again.

The regent looked down his tiny nose at their party and sniffed. "Reason? Ha! This _creature_ has done me a deathly insult. The only acceptable recompense is _deathly retribution._ "

It was _precisely_ at that moment that Lance realized that he had _no idea_ how he was supposed to pass the key to Shiro. He'd shoved the key in his mouth to avoid getting caught with it, and then... hadn't found a time to take it _out_. They were being escorted almost as closely as Shiro.

... _Fuck_.

Fucking— _How_ was he supposed to hand Shiro the key? God, this was why Slav had said ten-percent, wasn't it. Fuck, fuck fuck _fuck—_

It was probably a good thing that their bubble-head respiration apparatuses kept up with their breathing no matter what. Lance probably would have gone through a whole oxygen tank in five minutes flat.

Pidge discreetly jabbed his side with a pointy little elbow, like he needed any more help watching the aliens turn their backs on them, dragging Shiro, _Shiro_ , along to his death.

"Wait—!" someone cried hoarsely, and it wasn't until Lance felt their eyes fall on him that he realized that the crier had been _him._

"What?" snapped the regent, flicking a fin in a gesture that resembled an impatient foot-tap.

Lance's thought process stalled for three horrible, endless seconds, a loading screen stuck behind his teeth with that all-important key, and then he burst out with, "Can't we at least say goodbye?"

"Useless fripperies," the regent snorted, turning on his tail fin.

_No, no, no, no, nonono—_

A faint memory of his father's hospital ward denying entry to all of them except his mother zipped through the back of Lance's mind, and in a haze of panic, he stammered, "He's— he's my husband, _please!"_

Miraculously, that got the regent to pause. "Your... husband."

Lance gulped down the butterflies and sent out a quick, silent prayer to whatever alien deity might be listening.

Allura proved to be just godly enough to hear it.

"Y-yes..." she said slowly, faltering as she glanced over at Lance.

The guards were unmoved, but other members of the team, Shiro included, were looking at him like he was a lunatic.

Lance didn't blame them.

He looked back at Allura with wide, desperate eyes, praying with all his might that, _please let me go, I have to hand him the key,_ got through.

And, lo and behold, that good ol' blue lion bond _worked._

"Husband," Allura said with much more surety than she'd started with. She gave a sharp jerk of the head, raising her clear blue eyes to meet the regent's twenty beady black ones head-on. "Are you _really_ so cruel as to deny my paladin one last embrace with his beloved?"

Badass princess _for the win._

The regent eyed them all down—emphasis on the _eyed_ — before dismissing them with a disgusted _harumph._ "Fine. Not it let be said that I am _heartless._ Allow them to embrace."

_Oh thank god._

Lance held in a sigh of heartfelt relief as he paddled over to Shiro. Shiro probably wouldn't die in some strange underwater prison after all.

It was only halfway there that he realized that he didn't have a clue how to _hand_ Shiro the key when the key was most definitely _not in his hand_ and he had no way of discreetly getting it there. He couldn't exactly hand Shiro the key with his _mouth._

Lance wasn't very good at forethought today, was he.

He kept paddling even as his extremities went numb at the realization, his mind silently, helplessly reeling as Shiro approached like oncoming doom.

 _Wait,_ he thought when he was a mere five feet away from Shiro. _Mouth._

Lance had a mouth. Shiro also had a mouth.

There actually _was_ a way he could hand Shiro the key, it just didn't involve hands.

...This was going to be awkward as _fuck_.

(Also maybe tugged straight from Lance's deepest, darkest fantasies, but who cared about that? Not him, nosiree, what fantasies? Not _Lance's._ His thoughts about their venerable team leader were _strictly_ of the platonic admiration variety, because his position as Voltron's 'right-hand' would be _way_ too awkward to deal with otherwise. It was bad enough with Allura floating around his mindscape.)

(...Yes, Lance was aware of the whole 'right hand' innuendo. No, he hadn't thought any deeper into it. Why would anyone even _consider_ such a thing? _God._ )

Shiro looked perfectly baffled as he watched Lance approach.

Lance grimaced, his chest twanging with sympathy and guilt alike. By all accounts, the worst was yet to come.

He reached for Shiro's face, making sure to telegraph his motions as clearly as possible. If he absolutely had to do this, the least he could do was make sure he didn't take Shiro by surprise.

From the expression on his face, Lance gathered that Shiro had caught onto what he was doing, and very much wanted to know why Lance was _doing_ this to him.

 _Sorry, man,_ Lance thought as he reeled Shiro in close, his heart hammering against his ribcage and his body tingling frantically from head to toe, _it'll be over quick, I promise._

He mashed his bubble-head into Shiro's, felt Shiro's surprised breath ghost over his mouth, and then...

Well.

He kissed him.

Because that's how he was giving him the key, right?

Except Lance was wholly unprepared for the way it would feel to really, honestly, _actually kiss someone._ He wasn't expecting to feel _literal fireworks._

It was a headrush, weightlessness taking hold of his limbs in a way that told him he'd be in trouble if the water wasn't supporting him, achingly sweet longing seeding, growing, and _blooming_ inside his chest all at once. It was Shiro catching his breath, how vividly that little intake of air was painted all across Lance's senses, the questioning trill he could smell-taste- _feel_ on Shiro's lips. It was the noise building in the pit of his belly, too deep to voice but growing heavier and louder all the time.

He doesn't know how long he floated in the feeling, but the key poked his tongue as he curled it in his own mouth, and the feeling pierced through his haze like an adrenaline shot.

He fumbled the metal out from under his tongue, clumsily tilting his head and parting his lips.

Shiro copied him slowly, amicable but confused, and then emitted a little grunt of surprised understanding when Lance slipped him the key.

It clicked against Shiro's teeth as it was shuffled and settled into his mouth, and then Shiro's tongue was reaching out and tracing Lance's in one smooth stroke, and Lance swore his entire soul _exeunt stage left, pursued by hormones._

The fact that they were floating several hundred feet underwater was irrelevant— _especially_ not with Shiro reaching up to cup Lance's face in turn, the chains on his wrists making the angle awkward but workable.

Broad, damp, cool hands rested on Lance's cheeks just far enough forward to cover both their mouths, Shiro drew back mere millimeters to breathe, "Escape route?" into Lance's between kisses.

It took Lance about ten frantic, head-rattling heartbeats to figure out what Shiro was talking about, and then another five to summon up the correct wordage.

"Down the hall—" Kiss. "—t-t-to the left—" Kiss. "—third do-oh-or on the—" Kiss. "—right, th-the m-middle window—" Kiss. "—unlocked—" Kiss. "—meet y-you in-in th-hhe kelp forest—" Kiss.

"Good," Shiro whispered, then dropped his hands to leave Lance with one last _very_ sound kiss (like he wasn't floating high enough already, god, _how was he going to swim?_ ). He pulled back, separating their bubble-heads, and looked soulfully into Lance's eyes, apparently unaware that Lance was only processing about five percent of _everything_ now and here ever after. "I'm so sorry, love. Tell Veronica I love her."

Lance tried to make his dazed look look like heartbreak. He wasn't sure how well it worked, but no one called foul as the guards hauled Shiro up and back.

He watched them go until the whole party was well out of earshot, then glanced back at his own team.

They were gaping, drifting in the water like _deadweight._

Lance hitched up a smile over the scream that had finally built up to his throat. He was pretty sure it showed on his face anyway, but then, he wasn't nearly the only one.

"...Were you and Shiro always—" Hunk started, only to cut off with a grunt when Pidge dug her pointy little elbows into him next.

"—so sweet?" she segued in hurriedly. She'd been the only one to see Lance almost swallow the key. "Man, we haven't seen you guys at the honeymoon stage in _forever_."

"Executions do weird things to, uh, husbands," Lance said, his voice crackling in his throat as he struggled to stick to the right term.

"Indeed," rumbled their escort. "I am so sorry for your loss."

"...Thanks," said Lance.

No one had anything else to add to that.

"Now we shall escort you to the ballroom," intoned the escort.

"L-lead the way."

* * *

They all managed to leave the planet alive, Lance quietly bid goodbye to his chances ever hold a non-awkward conversation with Shiro again, and the universe chugged on as always.

Well, mostly.

He caught Shiro touching his mouth with a contemplative look as they all decompressed from the mission, only to startle and flush as he caught Lance's gaze, and, well.

That scream took up permanent residence in Lance's stomach. There was no hope left for him in Voltron’s mindspace anymore, was there.


End file.
